What is the C-Gear?

The C-Gear is the device Generation V pins to the touch screen, given to you in Striaton City by the scientist Fennel after you fetch the Dream Mist for her research. Where the Pokétch was a tray of novelties, the C-Gear is a communications hub with three channels, and it runs constantly, underneath every route and town in Unova.

The infrared channel handles the close work: quick trades and battles between two systems pointed at each other, and the exchange of Friend Codes by touch. The wireless channel powers the Entralink, a wooded clearing at Unova's centre where you can cross into a friend's game as a visitor, help them, and bring home rewards, as well as the Xtransceiver's video calls between nearby systems. The online channel exists for one job, Game Sync, the nightly handshake with the Pokémon Global Link that tucked your Pokémon into the Dream World.

The C-Gear also listened while it idled. Its Pass By mode swapped small data, surveys and goodwill with other copies of the games that wandered within wireless range, so a commute with the DS asleep in your bag could still stock your game with strangers' traces.

Its skin was yours to change, with designs dealt out by the Global Link and by promotions, which is the melancholy footnote: when the Generation V Global Link closed on January 14, 2014, the C-Gear's online channel and its custom skins died where they stood. The device still glows on the bottom screen today, two channels of three alive, a hub with one silent line.